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Culinary name#Humor

{{Short description|Names for foods in the kitchen or in trade}}

{{More footnotes needed|date=January 2023}}

Culinary names, menu names, or kitchen names are names of foods used in the preparation or selling of food, as opposed to their names in agriculture or in scientific nomenclature. The menu name may even be different from the kitchen name. For example, from the 19th until the mid-20th century, many restaurant menus were written in French and not in the local language.

Examples include veal (calf), calamari (squid), and sweetbreads (pancreas or thymus gland). Culinary names are especially common for fish and seafood, where multiple species are marketed under a single familiar name.

Examples

Foods may come to have distinct culinary names for a variety of reasons:

  • Euphemism: the idea of eating some foods may disgust or offend some eaters regardless of their actual taste
  • Testicles: Rocky Mountain oysters, Prairie oysters, lamb fries, or animellesOxford Companion to Food, s.v. 'testicles'
  • Fish milt: soft roe or white roe to disguise that is actually sperm not eggs
  • Thymus gland and pancreas gland: sweetbreads{{Cite book |last1=Fearnley-Whittingstall |first1=Hugh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jsFkDQAAQBAJ&dq=sweetbreads+euphemism&pg=PT1518 |title=River Cottage A to Z: Our Favourite Ingredients, & How to Cook Them |last2=Corbin |first2=Pam |last3=Diacono |first3=Mark |last4=Duffy |first4=Nikki |last5=Fisher |first5=Nick |last6=Lamb |first6=Steven |last7=Maddams |first7=Tim |last8=Meller |first8=Gill |last9=Wright |first9=John |date=2016-12-15 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4088-6365-7 |language=en}} s.v. 'sweetbreads'
  • Kangaroo meat: "Australus" has been proposed as a euphemism{{Cite web |date=2005-12-20 |title=Fancy a slice of australus? |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2005-12-20-fancy-a-slice-of-australus/ |access-date=2023-01-16 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}
  • Attractiveness: the traditional name may be considered dull, undistinctive, or unattractive
  • Kiwifruit: a rename of the Chinese gooseberry which has now become its standard name{{Cite web |date=9 June 2020 |others=Ministry for Culture and Heritage |title=Chinese gooseberry becomes kiwifruit: 15 June 1959 |url=https://nzhistory.govt.nz/the-chinese-gooseberry-becomes-the-kiwifruit |access-date=2023-01-16 |website=New Zealand History |language=en}}
  • Mahi-mahi: the dolphinfish is often referred to with this name to avoid confusion with dolphin (the marine mammal) meat{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Ronald D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xg8HEAAAQBAJ&dq=mahi+mahi+dolphinfish+renaming&pg=PA224 |title=Strategic Planning for Public Relations |date=2020-11-11 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-20136-9 |pages=224 |language=en}}
  • The Patagonian toothfish is marketed as the Chilean sea bass
  • The African cichlid found in many aquaria is presented as tilapia
  • The spinal marrow of veal and beef is called amourettesfrom a Provencal word for roosters' testicles, but homonymous with 'puppy love' Le petit RobertAndre Simon, A concise encyclopedia of gastronomy, s.v.
  • The meat of Asian carps has been marketed in the United States as silverfin{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/if-you-cant-beat-em-eat-em-university-of-illinois-serves-invasive-asian-carp-for-dinner|title="If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em": University of Illinois serves invasive Asian carp for dinner|date=2019-01-29|last=Thompson|first=Megan|publisher=PBS Newshour|accessdate=2022-10-16}} or copi{{cite web|url=https://www.foodandwine.com/news/copi-fish-asian-carp-invasive-species|title=What Is Copi? A New Name for an Invasive Fish|date=2022-06-22|last=Castrodale|first= Jelisa|publisher=Food & Wine|accessdate=2022-10-16}} to avoid the social stigma and promote it as a commercial food
  • Evocation of a specific culinary tradition
  • Shrimp in Italian-American contexts is often called scampi
  • Florentine refers to dishes that include spinach
  • Squid is often called by its Italian name, calamari, on menusWayne Gisslen, Professional Cooking, p. 446
  • Different terminology stemming from diglossia
  • The words beef, veal, pork, mutton, venison and poultry are derived from the words used by the French-speaking lords in post-Conquest England{{Citation needed|date=October 2012}}
  • Other
  • In French, chestnuts are called {{lang|fr|châtaignes}} on the tree, but {{lang|fr|marrons}} in the kitchen
  • "Laver" is a culinary name for certain edible algae,Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. usually species of Porphyra such as Porphyra umbilicalis, although "green laver" may refer to species of Monostroma or Ulva; species of Ulva are also known as "sea lettuce"
  • {{lang|ca|Truita de patata}} (lit. 'potato trout') in Catalan cuisine, a potato omelette: "if you don't catch a trout, you've got to have something more humble for dinner -- something to pretend is a trout".{{Cite book |last=Andrews |first=Colman |title=Catalan Cuisine: Europe's Last Great Culinary Secret |year=1997 |isbn=1909808369 |pages=58}}
  • Cappon magro (lit. 'fast-day capon'), a seafood salad

{{anchor|Humor}}

= Humor and ethnic dysphemism =

Humorous exaltation often takes the form of a dysphemism disparaging particular groups or places.Eric Partridge, Words, Words, Words!, 1939, republished as {{isbn|1317426444}} in 2015, p. 8 It has been observed that "Celtic dishes seem to receive more than their share of humorous names in English cookbooks".{{Cite book |last=Palmatier |first=Robert Allen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OqIe3YFwsFkC&dq=%22scotch+woodcock%22+%22welsh+rabbit%22&pg=PA315 |title=Food: A Dictionary of Literal and Nonliteral Terms |date=2000 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-31436-0 |pages=s.v. 'Scotch woodcock' |language=en}} Many of these are now considered offensive.{{Cite book |url=https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/99473 |title=Oxford English Dictionary |date=June 2022 |pages=s.v. 'Irish' A.5.b}} See List of foods named after places for foods named after their actual place of origin.

  • Welsh rabbit, melted cheese on toast. "Welsh" was probably used as a pejorative dysphemism, meaning "anything substandard or vulgar",Kate Burridge, Blooming English: Observations on the Roots, Cultivation and Hybrids of the English Language, {{isbn|0521548322}}, 2004, p. 220 and suggesting that "only people as poor and stupid as the Welsh would eat cheese and call it rabbit",Robert Hendrickson, The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 1997, as quoted in Horn, "Spitten image"cf. "Welsh comb" = "the thumb and four fingers" in Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1788, as quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'Welsh' or that "the closest thing to rabbit the Welsh could afford was melted cheese on toast".Roy Blount Jr., Alphabet Juice, 2009, {{isbn|1429960426}}, s.v. 'folk etymology' Or it may simply allude to the "frugal diet of the upland Welsh".Meic Stephens, ed., The Oxford companion to the literature of Wales, 1986, s.v., p. 631
  • Welsh caviar, laverbread, made of seaweed;Ole G. Mouritsen, Seaweeds: Edible, Available, and Sustainable, 2013, {{isbn|022604453X}}, p. 150
  • Essex lion, veal;E.B. Tylor, "The Philology of Slang", Macmillan's Magazine, 29:174:502-513 (April 1874), p. 505
  • Norfolk capon, kipper;
  • Irish apricot, apple, grape, lemon, plum, etc., potato;
  • Scotch woodcock, scrambled eggs and anchovies on toast;Laurence Horn, "Spitten image: Etymythology and Fluid Dynamics", American Speech 79:1:33-58 (Spring 2004), {{doi|10.1215/00031283-79-1-33}} [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31406355_Spitten_image_Etymythology_and_Fluid_Dynamics full text]
  • Dutch goose, a stuffed pig's stomach in Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine;{{Cite book |last=Allen |first=Gary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nz0pCgAAQBAJ&dq=%22scotch+woodcock%22+%22welsh+rabbit%22&pg=PT55 |title=Sausage: A Global History |date=2015-09-15 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=978-1-78023-555-4 |language=en}}
  • French goose, a kind of sausage stew;
  • English monkey, melted cheese with breadcrumbs soaked in milk, served on toast or crackers;{{Cite book |last=Hill |first=Janet McKenzie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qyQjAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22english+monkey%22+recipe&pg=PR5 |title=The Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics |date=1898 |publisher=Boston Cooking-School Magazine |pages=57 |language=en}}
  • Albany beef, Hudson River sturgeon used as a substitute for beef.{{Cite book |last=Palmatier |first=Robert Allen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OqIe3YFwsFkC&q=albany+beef |title=Food: A Dictionary of Literal and Nonliteral Terms |date=2000 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-31436-0 |pages=s.v. 'beefeater' |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Oxford English Dictionary |url=https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/248169 |access-date=2022-08-14 |website=www.oed.com |language=en}}, s.v. 'Albany beef'
  • Sea kitten, fish. A renaming proposed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, in the hope of dissuading people from eating fish, by likening fish to appealing companion animals.{{cite web | title=What's a Sea Kitten? Look It Up! |website=PETA| date=2010-05-06 | url=https://www.peta.org/blog/whats-sea-kitten-look/ | access-date=2023-01-20}}{{cite web | last=Ibrahim | first=Nur | title=Did PETA Try To Rename Fish 'Sea Kittens'? |website=Snopes| date=2022-04-19 | url=https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/peta-rename-fish-sea-kittens/ | access-date=2023-01-20}}

See also

{{portal|Food}}

Notes

{{reflist}}

Bibliography

  • "Culinary terminology" in Oxford Companion to Food, 1st edition, s.v.
  • Andre Simon, A concise encyclopedia of gastronomy mentions 16 different 'culinary names' passim

Category:Names

Category:Food and drink terminology

Category:Culinary arts

Category:Culinary terminology